


The Tunnels Under (Pinkerlocke)

by The Plateau Chronicler (cloaked_saurosuchus)



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen, I suck at coli so prepare for death my friends, Pinkerlocke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 15:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloaked_saurosuchus/pseuds/The%20Plateau%20Chronicler
Summary: A pinkerlocke. Thread here: http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/qnc/2703379 . Mostly mirrors the thread but might go into slight more detail at parts.Idite, a gaoler stuck in a cave system for who-knows-how-long turns to the Shade to help her try to fulfill her duties.





	1. Intro

She was so alone.

But not alone enough.

The three bodies in front of her painfully reminded her how she failed everything she stood for.

She dug her claws into the ground. She was supposed to keep them out, to keep them safe. But when they came here, it was already too late. The cave already claimed them.

She stared at them, trembling. Soon, they will also become covered by the same, sickly gray crystals that bound her to the cave. Soon, they will also become abandoned by their gods and forgotten.

She roared in frustration and collapsed to the ground. With a quiet "clink!" a small shard of sacridite, shaken loose by the movement, landed in front of her.

It was the only thing able to flourish in here, dimly lightning the cave from between the gray crystals.

She reached out for the shard and absent-mindedly examined it. It was so ironic how this soulless mineral, with no deity to bless it or help it, was so full of life. Maybe not being bound by such thing made it actually stronger than-

She looked back at the three bodies. She had an idea, an idea that was so repulsive that it's very existence made her, once again, betray everything she stood for, but maybe, _just maybe..._

"I wish to be forgiven for what I'm about to do," she whispered to the shard as it shone in response. She then crushed it and gently put some of the pieces on each of the dead dragons.

And then she started carefully carving runes into the cave floor.


	2. The Awakening

The first one to awake was the young snapper. She opened her eyes, slowly, and with a grunt, came to her feet. The world was spinning, the walls of the cave seemed to be closing in on her for a second, but it was all but an illusion. Her orange eyes glowed next to her rusty scales and wings, and she was wrapped in tattered remnants of something that, at some point in the past, probably was a set of practical clothes. All that was recognizable _now_ was a red cape, hood, and a satchel around her waist that _somehow_ ended up being mostly unscathed by... whatever destroyed the rest.

As the world didn't seem to want to stop spinning, she sat back down and with a sigh she rummaged through get belongings. After a few seconds, she found what she was looking for. It was a pair of gloves, slightly dirty and worn, but in good shape overall. She shakily slipped them on. With a new, if thin, layer of protection, she decided to carefully walk the cave floor to the nearby shape, finding her way around the rocks more with touch than with sight.

As the world slowly came back info focus, her thoughts and memories did the same. The room was dimly illuminated by colourful crystals growing on the ceiling, quite probably sacridite.

In front of her, laying in half-destroyed armour and in a puddle of something that looked like black ink, was a dark green guardian with creamy wings and cherry red underbelly. A strange, black marking wrapped around his neck and then spread further, its real size concealed by all the metal he was wearing.

The sight of it made the snapper uneasy. As if something... As if he...

"By gods, Seluvia!" she realised and without a second thought started looking for life signs.

"THEY WILL BE FINE."

She snapped around. The source of the raspy, otherworldly echoing voice was a furred creature, slouched by one of the cave's walls, one particularly overgrown by bleak brown crystals. She was massive - nearly as large as an adult guardian, though there were no discernible wings to speak of. In fact, her form was concealed by copious amounts of long, unkept fur. In places where its strands weren't glued together by the now-familiar black liquid, gray fur with a slight blue tint poked out.

And then she raised her head. Dust and rubble fell from her large, half-broken set of antlers and strands of her dark red mane slunk to the side, revealing her dimly glowing pink eyes. She looked down on the snapper. There was something extremely unnerving about that gaze. And it surely wasn't the fact that her pupils had a horizontal slit, no. It was the _way_ she stared.

But she was right, the snapper realised after she recovered from the initial shock. Seluvia was breathing. It was shallow, yes, but _steady_. She turned back to him, trying to ignore the menacing presence behind her, and shakily started examining the black marking instead. She was looking for any signs of injury or sickness. It looked almost like a massive, black scar, but there was also this strange, glowing crystalline patch under Seluvia's chin that looked a little bit like... a center of some sort. It _also_ was strangely similar to sacridite, Umbra realised. Like the one on the cave's ceiling.

She quickly stored this odd finding in her memory and decided to continue focusing on the examination for now. She started carefully going over the much larger dragon's ribs, checking if any of them aren't broken.

"I SAID, THEY WILL BE FINE. JUST GIVE THEM TIME. THEY WILL AWAKE IN TIME." The creatures eyes narrowed as the snapper hesitantly turned to her.

"H-how can you be so sure?"

"BECAUSE IT WORKED WITH YOU." The creature rose one of her paws and pointed a claw onto where, presumably, was a side of her neck.

The snapper immediately laid her own paw on the left side of her neck and froze. She couldn't _see_ it, but she very much could feel the crystalline texture under her fingers. She slowly traced the edge of the black scar, wrapping around half of her throat. She turned back to where she stumbled from and realised that that spot _also_ had its own puddle of the black liquid. She was so disoriented and scatterbrained up until now that she did not even _notice_ that _she_ was laying in it just moments before.

She sheepishly turned to the large creature, panic in her eyes. "Did you- How did- W-_who are you?_"

The creature straightened and suddenly seemed even larger than before. "I AM IDITE, A SEEKER OF THE OVERSEER DIVISION, A SERVANT OF THE ICEWAR-" The raspiness of her voice turned into a coughing fit and she seemed to turn much smaller, hunching over and shaking violently with each cough. Her red mane slid into her face and covered anything left that could show her expression.

The snapper's empathy overpowered her fear and she ran to her immediately. "Are you alright?"

Idite tried to rise up and say something, but was interrupted by another fit. The snapper took a step back, but still kept close, cautiously. She felt like she _had_ to help somehow.

"I- My name is Umbra. Did you say Icewarden? Are you a dragon? I have some medical training concerning d-dragons, perhaps I could help you with that cough, i-if you let me."

Finally, Idite managed to get some air and straightened again. The black liquid dripped from her chin to the floor. "I DO NOT NEED YOUR HELP. MY ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES." She had to pause to let another fit pass. Umbra nervously shifted her weight. This wasn't the answer she expected _or_ wanted. "AND YES. A GAOLER, A SERVANT OF THE ICEWARDEN. I PRESUME YOU THREE ARE DRAGONS TOO."

An inkling of a realisation stung Umbra upon hearing the last sentence. "You presume that us... Three?"

And then it dawned upon her. "By _gods_, Pawn! H-how could I-" She spun around and started looking around frantically.

"YOUR FEATHERED ACQUAINTANCE IS OVER THERE."

Umbra bolted in the direction Idite pointed and truly, behind a pile of rocks, in another black puddle, laid a blue coatl, with seafoam swirls along his entire body. The amount of carefully cut decorative feathers and jewellery he was adorned with definitely made him stick out. He looked more like he was going to a ball than doing anything that had to do with exploring a cave. He was breathing in the same way Seluvia was and Umbra found the same marking. This time, it was sprawling around his back.

"I THINK THEY MIGHT AWAKE RATHER SOON."

"Ah. H-he'll be rather angry when that happens. This thing soaked into all of his things." She carefully tried to get the liquid out of the decorative feathers with her claws, to no avail.

A low rumble, short rumble shook the cave. Wherever it was a tremor, Idite laughing or growling, Umbra was unable to discern. "HE'LL BE SURPRISED TO FIND JUST HOW DEEP IT HAS GOTTEN. SO, PAWN, SELUVIA AND UMBRA?"

"Y-yes. Those are our names."

"AND WHO DO YOU SERVE?"

Umbra stopped examining Pawn and turned back to the gaoler, who hasn't moved an inch. "Ah, we... we don't serve anyone, r-really? We're an independent e-expedition."

Idite cleared her throat. "W-WELL NOW, YOU WILL SERVE ME." Her voice wavered, but in a different way than an suppressing a cough would do.

"W-what?"

Her question went unanswered as a low groan split the cave's air. Umbra knew that groan. She let Pawn be and ran back to Seluvia, who was starting to stir.

Before Umbra arrived next to him, the guardian rose to his full height with considerable noise. No one can be silent while making sudden movements in a full set of armour. He immediately started anxiously looking around, swaying around as his head spun and digging his claws deep into the rock under him.

"Seluvia!"

The guardian turned to the snapper without a second thought. As hazy as his pink eyes were, he would be able to recognize her voice any time. "Umbra. Are you alright?" he whispered, his voice deep and rumbling.

"Of course. Don't strain yourself, you can sit down."

He whispered a silent thanks to the Arcanist and his shoulders relaxed.

"Seluvia. I said that you should _sit down_."

The soft smile on his face quickly turned into a grumpy frown. "Okay, okay, as you wish." With another set of clanking sounds, he sat down. "Everything's spinning anyways." He looked looked to the side and his face turned blank. He got much quieter. "Are... are you sure you're alright? Something feels off. As if something terrible happened."

"ALL THREE OF YOU DIED. THAT MIGHT'VE BEEN IT."

Seluvia sprung on his feet, nearly tripping over them in the process. He dug his claws into the floor, flared out his wings and let out a deep growl in the direction of the voice. Umbra desperately clung to his leg in a try to stop him from doing anything reckless.

"It's okay, it's okay. I don't think she means any harm." Seluvia stopped growling, but stayed tense and alert. Idite watched them without a sign of any emotion.

"Who _is_ she?! And _how_ did she-"

"She was the one who brought us back." sang a voice behind the two dragons in an oddly cheery voice. Pawn.

The coatl fluffed up his crest and hopped over Seluvia and Umbra, facing the gaoler with a wide smile. Then he spread his arms and started explaining without wasting even a second by bothering to even _look_ at their reactions. "The markings. The puddles of black liquid. The runes, etched into the floor. They might've almost been made illegible by the drag marks and nearly worn out by their use, but I noticed them, and they all point to some pretty powerful magic at work. At _your_ location."

Idite grumbled and looked down at the coatl. "YOU SEEM TO BE QUICK ON YOUR FEET _AND_ WITH YOUR THOUGHTS, IT SEEMS."

"Shade magic, I presume?" Pawn continued with a sly smile, ignoring as Idite narrowed her eyes. "We could use someone of such magical talents with us, why don't you join us on our journey deeper into the tunn-"

**_"NOBODY IS GOING TO GO ANY DEEPER INTO THE TUNNELS."_** Idite's voice echoed through the chamber so loudly, Seluvia instinctively pulled his wing around the snapper clinging to his leg, shielding her. Umbra _barely_ managed to not jump up in surprise.

Pawn seemed more offended that he was interrupted than anything else. "And why should that be?" he scoffed.

Idite bared her teeth. "BECAUSE I AM IDITE, A GAOLER, SERVANT OF THE ICEWARDEN, A SEEKER OF THE OVERSEER ORDER-"

"Oh? So what?" Seluvia nudged Umbra to stand back and came face-to-face with the interrupted gaoler, who was staring him down furiously. "No amount of worthless titles gives you any authority over us." He took another step towards her, his wings flared out and his shoulders high. Idite didn't move an inch.

She also didn't need to hear him continue to get where he was going. "I DON'T WANT TO FIGHT YOU," she grumbled, her voice low. Or at least, as low as her echoing voice could go.

Pawn and Umbra recognized the threat undertone in that sentence. Seluvia seemed to not.

"Alright then, at least you seem to know when to back down," he started, turning towards the other two, "I _hate_ stuck up, arrogant dragons like you, maybe we should-"

And he suddenly collapsed. Umbra ran to him, with the intention of finding out what's wrong. But the panic made her thoughts scramble all over the place and she- _she just couldn't decide what to do first_. Meanwhile, Seluvia was gasping for air and desperately trying to stand back up, with surprise and fear in his eyes, but it was as if something was dragging him down.

"BUT I WILL USE FORCE IF I DEEM IT NECESSARY."

Umbra turned to Idite and gasped. She was trembling, her eyes pitch black and the dark liquid streaming down her chin. No, not liquid, Umbra realised. It was the Shade.

It only took a few seconds before she released her grasp with a strained gasp and her eyes gained colour again. Seluvia scrambled onto his feet and stood himself as a shield between the gaoler and the snapper, shaking, but determined to strike if necessary. His low, threatening growl was almost unheard as Idite collapsed into another coughing fit.

Pawn frowned. "So it _did_ give you some power over us, hm."

Umbra shot him a surprised glance. "_Wait_, you- You knew- and you still- How _could_ you-"

"IT IS MY _DUTY_, AS AN OVERSEER, TO CONTAIN THE SHADE LURKING IN THESE TUNNELS. A DUTY I FAILED TO KEEP UP PROPERLY." Idite straightened up again and interrupted the snapper before the conflict could escalate. "BUT I _HAVE_ TO KEEP IT FROM SPREADING ANY MORE. IF IT MEANS TO INFECT MYSELF, AND YOU, WITH IT, JUST TO KILL YOU AGAIN, SO BE IT. NOBODY WILL GO DEEPER INTO THE TUNNEL. THE SHADE THAT IS IMPRISONED THERE IS FAR GREATER AND MORE DANGEROUS THAN WHAT YOU SEE HERE. DRAGONS THAT CAME INTO CONTACT WITH IT HAD TO BE..." Idite's voice wavered.

Seluvia stopped growling and just watched Idite as she gathered her thoughts to continue.

"I-I HOPE I MADE MY POINT CLEAR. I DO NOT WISH TO HURT YOU, BUT YOU MUST DO AS I SAY."

"And what would you want us to do, hm?" Pawn hissed, clearly extremely discontent with this situation.

"I NEED YOU TO GO BACK UP AND SEAL ALL THE ENTRANCES TO THESE CAVES. PERMANENTLY."

Seluvia shot a quick glance at Umbra, who seemed rather unnerved by all this information, before deciding on his answer. He relaxed his shoulders and nodded. "Alright. Seems fair."

"Fair?!" Pawn shrieked, fluffing up in anger. "_Fair?!_ I've come here to find the treasure and get rich, which, _by the way_, has _not_ happened yet, not to listen to some stuck-up creature! _Seluvia_, would you _kindly_-"

Seluvia's and Idite's stern look shut him up before he could continue. And Umbra's look of disbelief stung more than it should, he thought.

"_Fine_." he finally spat out, laying his crest flat and looking to the side, evading everyone's gazes. "How come you're gonna let us, dragons you infected by the Shade _yourself_, do that anyways?"

"I TOOK EXTRA CARE TO CONTAIN THE SHADE INSIDE YOU. IT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SPREAD AND IS NOT INFECTIOUS. DANGEROUS TO YOU, MAYBE. BUT TO NO ONE ELSE. SHOULD IT OVERTAKE YOU," Idite hesitated, "I TRUST SOMEONE WILL TAKE CARE OF IT. THERE'S ONLY THREE OF YOU."

Umbra shuddered at the thought, but a question nagged her. "Why don't you go seal the entrances yourself? Y-you seem more than capable."

Idite's shoulders dropped and the determined look on her face faded. She reached behind, grabbed one of the sickly gray crystals, and with a shudder broke off it's tip. "THE CAVE CLAIMED ME LONG AGO."

And in that moment Umbra realised what she was seeing. She must've noticed it before, but she couldn't believe it. The long fur that obscured Idite's real form was speckled with those crystals, not just small ones. Idite wasn't laying in front of the wall that grew them. They were growing _on_ Idite. She was a part of the wall.

Umbra's eyes turned wide as she realised the full gravity of such condition. She didn't really know what it was, but there _had_ to be some way she could help Idite, surely she could do _something_-

"I DON'T NEED YOUR PITY." Idite interrupted her thoughts, obviously being able to read every single of them on her face. "I NEED YOU TO GET GOING." She broke the crystal piece into three and with a whispered spell breathed a tinge of pink into them. With a slight movement of her claw, she sent them floating towards the dragons in front of her. "TAKE THESE. THEY WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR ME TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU. BUT DO NOT THINK I _NEED_ THEM TO DO THAT. IT WILL BE LESS UNPLEASANT FOR YOU, THOUGH."

Umbra took hers, took out a piece of string out of her bag and put it around her neck. Seluvia put his under his chest plate. Pawn, after few seconds of hesitation, finally decided to sink his into the feathered collar of his cape.

"NOW, GO. BE CAREFUL. STRANGE THINGS ROAM THESE CAVES, AND ONE OF THEM ALREADY KILLED YOU ALL. I WILL HELP YOU WHEN I CAN, BUT I CAN'T DO MUCH."

Idite took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a second, and then pointed towards one of the exits of the room.

"THIS ONE SHOULD LEAD UPWARDS. THE CORRIDORS KEEP SHIFTING, BUT IF YOU KEEP GOING UP, YOU SHOULD BE ON YOUR WAY OUT. USE YOUR SENSES AND MAGIC WISELY."

Pawn huffed disapprovingly, defeated. "Alright then. Let's go. Let's get this over with."

Without wasting any time looking at the rest of the expedition, he went out. Umbra shot Idite a short, apologetic glance and ran after him.

Seluvia got up and almost followed them, but then he stopped and turned back to Idite. He straightened. This time, there wasn't a threat in that posture, just determination. "If you hurt Umbra in _any_ way, I _will_ come back here and make sure you _pay_."

Idite looked back at him, nodding slightly. "I UNDERSTAND. IT IS YOUR DUTY TO PROTECT HER."

Seluvia nodded back at her and started leaving, but he stopped in the mouth of the corridor and hesitantly looked back at her.

Idite scowled quietly. "OH, COME _ON_. I DON'T NEED PITY FROM THE _TWO_ OF YOU. JUST GO."

Seluvia obeyed her and vanished into the darkness of the cave in pursuit of the other two dragons.

And Idite was left all alone.

Again. And she hoped it would stay that way, to be honest.

She huffed and laid down and started absentmindedly trying to groom the black liquid out of her fur, to no avail. She sighed in surrender as she realised that she was still laying in the puddle of Shade and stopped.

"THIS BETTER BE WORTH IT."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (To Terry Prachett: Sorry I stole the way your Death talks. It's just too good. Hope you won't mind me borrowing your caps lock.)

**Author's Note:**

> As always: I don't have beta readers and I'm not a native English speaker. If you spot grammar errors/typos, I'd be grateful if you let me know! ♥


End file.
